“Look!” Jack exclaimed. “Off there to the east!”

“Ships!” Stew exploded.

“Yep! And we’ve got no task force out there!”

“Duck into that long white cloud, quick!” Stew suggested.

Jack’s head was in a whirl as he gripped the controls, banked his plane, then vanished from sight into the cloud.

“Contact,” he whispered hoarsely. “Contact at last! And there’ll be a fight!”

CHAPTER III FRIENDLY ENEMIES

CHAPTER III

FRIENDLY ENEMIES

“Boy, oh boy!” Stew exulted as they slid into the cloud. He set his radio with trembling fingers. “Here’s where we score a scoop!”

“Wait!” Jack warned. “We can’t risk a false alarm. Might pull the entire task force off its course for nothing!”

Jack was thinking. What a lovely cloud this is! There’s sure to be a carrier in that Jap convoy down there, if they’re really Jap ships—a carrier and Zeros. There’s sure to be a fight, and this ship of ours is good for only 260 M.P.H. at most! But this is what she was built for, and what we were trained for. This is our zero hour. He drew in three deep breaths of air and felt better. Jitters, he decided. They all get them. Old Ironsides says we’d be no good if we didn’t.

Stew had not advised going into a cloud without a reason. They were still some distance from the task force—too far to be sure of anything. By following it in the cloud they could obtain a better view.

The cloud was miles long and appeared to dip down toward the sea. They were constantly running into thin filmy fringes and being obliged to drop lower. They didn’t want to be spotted by a Zero. Not yet. They must make sure that this was really a Jap task force, and get in a report. Then let the Zeros come if they would. They’d give them a grand exhibition of cloud hopping and, if need be, a glorious shooting match as well.

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